A Brief insight to the charity

Harvey’s Army became a registered charity in June 2014 after the tragic death of a miniature Poodle called Harvey. Harvey lost his life after bolting from a relatives house on 23rd November 2013, he was microchipped & wearing a collar & tag when he went missing. It was thought because of this that he would be reunited quickly, this was not the case. For 13 weeks Harvey’s family, friends & the Facebook group called “Find Harvey” searched, leafleted & contacted rescues, they even made newspaper & radio appeals.

It was an employee of the Highways Agency who eventually came forward after seeing one of the leaflets & confirmed she knew that Harvey’s body had been retrieved from the M62 Motorway just 21 minutes after he went missing. Harvey has not been scanned & the fact he had an id tag made no difference, his family had not been contacted.  Harvey had been placed in cold storage until February 2014 when he was cremated. After obtaining information from the Freedom of Information Act it was discovered that the Highways Agency were planning on phasing out the Area Management Memo 67/05, the very procedure that should have been used when dealing with Harvey’s case.From this came Harvey’s Army which was launched to prevent what happened to Harvey from ever happening again. Harvey’s Law, the online petition was launched in March 2014 & over 123k people signed the petition. The petition was debated in Parliament in March 2015 with 18 MP’s in attendance. It was unanimously agreed that the removal of 67/05 was to be overturned & reinstated with immediate effect together with Harvey’s Mandate to ensure that any deceased dog or cat retrieved from the Highway would be scanned for a microchip, a detailed report logged & filed & both the Police & Animal Warden notified. In addition a recommendation was made to all local councils that Harvey’s Mandate should be extended to all council roads. For the first time this mandate was to cover cats as well as dogs. Harvey’s Army has grown significantly & now has over 300 volunteers situated in England, Scotland & Wales.